Oren Cass
A DEFINING FEATURE of Naidu, Rodrik, and Zucman’s essay is its close alignment with the Democratic Party. Indeed, its initial set of policy proposals would fit comfortably within the platforms of many candidates seeking the party’s presidential nomination.
This congruence is not an indictment per se. Perhaps one of the nation’s political parties did stumble upon just the right economic outlook despite a fatally flawed neoliberalism dominating academic and popular economic thinking. But two other explanations seem more plausible. First, that their essay restates economic views widely held during the period they want to transcend. And second, that the changes proposed are less economic than political in nature and the values chosen are ones that reinforce a particular set of political preferences.
